Blue's Appearance
When Ka first meets Blue, he is struck by how contrary Blue's appearance is to what he might have expected from rumor alone:
His eyes were deep blue—almost midnight blue—a color you never saw in a Turk. He was brown-haired and beardless, much younger than Ka had expected; he had an aquiline nose and breathtakingly pale skin. He was extraordinarily handsome, but his gracefulness was born of self-confidence. In his manner, expression, and appearance there was nothing of the truculent, bearded, provincial fundamentalist whom the secularist press had depicted with a gun in one hand and a string of prayer beads in the other. (79)
Blue's relatively European and modern appearance stands in stark contrast to the regressive and coarse images that have been conjured up by the fear-mongering and anti-Islamic press, a key irony in the text that introduces the idea that not everything is as it seems on the surface in Kars, as well as the idea that media sensationalism sometimes interferes with our perceptions and understandings of reality until we see the truth for ourselves.
Necip's Death
Shortly before the coup at the National Theater, Necip and Ka run into each other, and they discuss Necip's terrifying visions of a hypothetical place in which God does not exist. They also talk about Necip's plans for the future, however, with Necip saying that he hopes to marry Kadife and become an Islamic science fiction writer. Seeing clear parallels between himself and Ka, Necip even says that Ka is his future. What's very ironic about this future-oriented conversation, however, is that Necip will die less than an hour later during the chaotic gunfire of the coup, and the future that he wants for himself will be taken up by his friend Fazil.
Sunay Zaim's Aspirations
As a young actor, we are told that Sunay Zaim often played the roles of important leaders and Jacobins like Napoleon, Lenin, Robespierre, and Enver Pasha, and that his greatest aspiration was to play Atatürk in films. However, when Sunay started a campaign to familiarize people with him as an actor, Kemalists saw his attentions towards Islamists as an attempt to curry religious favor, and Islamists saw his snide remarks towards the Prophet as a reason that he should indeed play the secular politician. Nonetheless, Sunay, in angering both left- and right-wing factions, was unable to gain either camp's support, and his popular campaigning and modeling of his public life after Atatürk led to his failure to be cast for other roles. He was so associated with Atatürk in the popular imagination that he was unable to be pictured successfully in any other role. Thus, in a twist of supreme irony, Sunay Zaim wanted to be Atatürk so badly that he both was and was not able to ever do so.
Fazil and Kadife's Love
For most of the novel, Kadife takes note of neither Necip nor Fazil—something particularly interesting since they all attend the same religious high school. Despite this, however, both Necip and Fazil are infatuated with Kadife, with Fazil taking up the mantle of Kadife adoration after Necip is killed during the coup at the theater. A particularly striking moment of this devotion comes during the secret meeting at the Hotel Asia, when Fazil announces that, of all the things he'd like to say to a prospective German paper (which is allegedly going to publish their joint statement), he wants to say that "If [Kadife] bare[s] [her] head, [he'll] kill [him]self" (305). Not only is this so alarming that it ends the meeting, with Blue denouncing suicide in general, but it stands in direct contradiction to what will happen later in the novel. Kadife, after all, will bare her head, and Fazil will not kill himself over it, but rather marry Kadife and have a child with her.
